Thread: 2-Dimensional character strings and realloc()

Hello, the following code fails/crashes in the second loop where it prints the content and frees the memory. But the issue could be with the first loop. Any help is appreciated in advance.

Code:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char **a, buf[80];
    int x;

    a = (char **)realloc(NULL, sizeof(char *));
    for(x = 0; x < 5; x++) 
    {
        gets(buf);
        a[x] = (char *)realloc(a, strlen(buf) * sizeof(char) + 1);
    }
    printf("--------------\n");
    for(x = 0; x < 5; x ++) 
    {
        printf("%s\n", a[x]);
        free(a[x]);
    }
    free(a);
    return 0;
}

You are only allocating space for a single char* in you first realloc.

You are reallocating into your "a" variable in the second realloc, which you clearly do not want to do.

(You should be using malloc since you are not really reallocating anything.)

You are not copying your buf into the newly allocated space.

(You should be using fgets instead of gets since fgets is safer.)

Assuming you want "a" to be an array of pointers,
which contains pointers to strings read by gets()...

In the first loop, there are two problems...
1) you are using "realloc", and not "malloc" or "calloc"
for the "strings" read by gets()... (this assumption is based
upon the fact that you are performing a "free()" in the 2nd loop.
2) you are never "copying" from "buf" to the newly allocated
space...

In other words, off the top of my head, this is what I think you
are trying to do:

Code:

    
    for(x = 0; x < 5; x++) 
    {
        gets(buf);
        /*
         * acquire space for string just read
         */
        a[x] = (char *)malloc(strlen(buf) * sizeof(char) + 1);
        strcpy(a[x], buf); 
        /*
         * expand the pointer list
         */
        a     = realloc(a, (x + 2) * (sizeof(char*)));
    }

HTH,
-tony

Thanks Tony, your suggestion worked.